Blue & Green Journal page

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Well what a bloody weekend!!! The weather did not let up for us after Saturday's torrential rain, it made the journey down to Devon and back a nightmare, people just don't drive according to the conditions, Paul was probably tired of me panicking every time somebody did something stupid, I think it was a combination of the circumstances and anxiety about the driving conditions.  I found I was struggling with two different kinds of emotions, obviously the sadness of losing Paul's Dad, he has been the only father figure around for me for the past 10+ years, I also felt an overwhelming heartbreak for Paul losing his father, then there was the children, they were all really upset bless them.  I found when my Dad died that I shut my grieving away to be strong for my Mum and siblings plus our children too, same thing when we lost Mum really.  I really wanted the weather to be calm enough for Paul to get out in the garden so that he had something to occupy his mind, it is his 'happy place' anyway, so getting out to sort out the devastation that Eunice left us would have been helpful.  We spent the morning just chilling out and talking through feelings etc, the weather really had us on the edge of our seat in the afternoon, we were waiting for the back fence to go, Paul went out a couple of times to try and add support to it, but with the bits of wood and glass flying around the summer house I just wanted him inside.  We prepared a Roast beef dinner, Paul does most of it, apart from preparing and slices the meat and making the Yorkshire pudding, although he can do it he chooses not to (probably so he doesn't take the blame if the turn out rubbish)  not that we really have that issue, I use the 'Same measurement of everything method' ie: small cup of flour, fill the same cup with eggs, milk add salt and pepper and a 'slosh' of water to give the batter the consistency of double cream.  What method do you all use,??

I would love to know how you do yours Janet, being a Yorkshire lass, also do you have yours with your Roast beef dinner or before with Gravy??! 

I do hope that the builders are able to get your roof sorted today, the weather couldn't have been worse for you this weekend.xxx

Our Michele had really worrying forecast too yesterday, 80mph winds and chance of Tornadoes!  She said it was quite bad when I spoke to her early on in the day. I hope you escaped without any damage, please go careful to work this morning my lovely. xxx

I was glad to sit at my desk and play yesterday afternoon, I really needed the distraction, after wasting an hour looking at Pinterest I totally changed my thoughts and decided to have a play with my 'Distress Resist Spray'  I took all  the precautions you ladies warned me about, I got myself a big old box and popped some packing paper inside so I could remove it between pages, the first one I did was the one above, I will share blank page below....

As some of you know, it creates a 'distressed' resist that has texture, I think it might stand out better with Distress Stain sprays rather than Distress Oxides.  For all the faffing (getting the box etc) I would have got similar result doing Emboss Resist with Clear Embossing Powder, so the jury is out so far!

I have tried to capture the texture and the shine that the spray leaves when dry.  I do like the effect but will reserve judgement until I have played more.  I thing you MUST have ready is a bowl of water to put your masks/stencils in the MOMENT you have used them, don't let the Spray dry on them (it dries really quickly too)!

I was so undecided what to use on my page, first I thought of using a Dragonfly but placing was tricky because obviously nothing was going to stick to the Resist background, so I decided on my 'Bargain' Woodware stamp from Hazel Eaton's shop, I thought that as it was a distressed stamped image anyway any missed bits wouldn't matter, do I stamped it in Versafine clare, them made the mistake of adding black embossing powder, it stuck to everything, all of the resist spray even though it was totally dry, so I carefully brushed it all off, I then placed the page back in the stamp platform and restamped in Versamark and carefully added clear embossing powder, purely to seal the black ink in over the Resist. It worked this time thankfully!! I then used a few stencils to add some more detail, a little bit of washi tape too, I finished with a pen nib embellishment. 

I think I like it, one thing I do find helpful is photographing as you go along, it's easier to see how it looks that way.

I hope that you all have a calm and safe Monday, 

Sending my love and hugs to all of you, Gentle hugs for our Brenda & Lynda,

Sandra

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

Your Projecte for Janet's Vintage Challenge Challenge

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Well our lazy weekend never happened,  we ended up on a hurried journey to Brixham as Paul's Dad took a turn for the worse, the journey was awful with the aftermath of Eunice , sadly Paul's Dad passed away just a few minutes before we arrived. He looked very much at peace, which is better all round really. 

Let's have a look at your Vintage projects, 

Janet 

Janet has shared three amazing vintage themed cards,  all three are very different and very pretty. 

Thank you so much for choosing such a lovely Challenge Janet XXX

Karen 

Karen's Description:

Here’s my Valentines card for Alan It was really hard to photograph + I messed it up slightly too

It’s a blend of Tattered Rose Pumice Stone and Ground Espresso DO Big note to self Clean mat after using darkest colour as I kept picking up Ground Espresso when going back in with Tattered Rose

tried to correct it with blending GE all the way around AND then stupidly sprinkled with water So added Sizzix die cut hearts in dark red to cover some of the splats

The LOVE YOU dies are SueW Plus the blending and colours look so much better in real life.

Karen what an amazing card, I love the blend that you have achieved with Tattered Rose,  Ground Espresso and Pumice Stone, not 3 colours I would think of putting together but I love that blend very much!  I bet Alan loved it 🥰.  Thank you so much for supporting Janet's challenge  XXX

Sonia

Sonia created her own amazing Backing papers for this Challenge,  they are incredible, I want them to be the FOCUS of a blog post so will save them to show then.

Sonia's Description:

Card 1: I created my own collage paper, inspired by Tiffany Solorio. I used tissue paper and stamped randomly with different stamps. I also stamped on masking tape, and used a stencil. I used Speckled Egg and Iced Spruce distress inks. I coloured the back of it with old paper distress ink. The sentiment is from LOTV. I found a laser cut bird cage and inked it with iced spruce, and die cut the butterfly and coloured that too.

Card 2:  I used an Amazing Paper Grace die set and Tim Holtz butterfly die. The papers are from my stash, and the little flowers are a punch.

I distressed the edges of the papers with a distressing tool.

WOW Sonia, firstly your Collage paper is perfect,  both cards are completely different in style but fit the Challenge perfectly, I don’t think I could pick a favourite,  I love the 'arty/grungy' of the first card, the little flowers giving Feminine touches,  the second card is really pretty, I love the vintage colours you have used too.  Thank you so much for supporting Janet's challenge XXX 

Maria 

Oh Maria! your cards are amazing,  I actually really love the Vintage Chicken image, or Cockerals! This would make a lovely piece of home decor if it was framed!  Using the DO's really ties it perfectly with the Kraft card, that beautiful lace is a lovely finishing touch.

Card 2 is stunning with those beautiful vintage ladies on that beautiful background paper with its soft peachy pinks, again the lace border gives a pretty finishing touch.  Thank you so much for supporting Janet's challenge. XXX 

Sue 

Such a pretty card Sue, I have these exact same papers in my stash, I think they might be papermania /DoCrafts,  I'm sure I got mine in one of those 'Goody Bags' that they used to do.  I love the shape of your card, those perfectly matching ribbons finished with the flower spray are a beautiful finishing touch to your Vintage Challenge card.  Thank you so much for supporting Janet's challenge XXX 

*****************

Janet thank you so much for choosing such a perfect challenge for us this week, it looks like everyone has really enjoyed taking part,  there are so many beautiful cards .   Ladies thank you all from the bottom of my heart ❤️ 

I hope that you all have a calm and quiet Sunday,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I spent the whole of yesterday thinking about all of you and hoping that you all remained safe and didn't experience too much damage from Eunice !!  We weren't that lucky we lost our Glass House/Summer House that we propagate all of our seeds and young plants in, it was in poor shape as it's been in the garden for many years and had no wood treatment or anything, it must be about30 years old, it lost one panel, then I heard an almighty crash and the whole front of it was flapping in the wind, our back fence is all but down too, its flapping like a bed sheet on a washing line.  The roof of Paul's building at work blew off again, this is the third time, the daft thing is that the building is only about 5 years old, all of the ancient Raf buildings are standing strong!  We had a few trees down, the Thames as burst it's banks too which is no surprise.  We ended the afternoon with a big hail storm.  The main thing is that we all are safe and thats really the only thing that matters.

I have a magazine review for you today and after that I have shared my Crafty shopping!

Creative Stamping Magazine Review 

Issue 105

I really like the Free stamps with this issue, they will work well with s Stampin Up set I have that is similar, the little 'Happy Birthday' Die with a Bonus shelf Die is by Hunkydory .  There are some great ideas in this issue and funnily enough there is a technique page on Shaving Foam projects, I only bought some Shaving Foam a couple weeks ago so hopefully it will inspire me to have a go.  I have been keeping it for when Sue comes over as those techniques are fun to do with a friend.

This first page shows some great inspiration for using the free Shelf die to make some 3D Designs, I really like the Tunnel card.

This feature shares the 'Shaving Foam Technique with you, she shows you how to use a stencil with your Shaving foam technique to achieve a Marbled Background, I have never thought of using stencils for this technique.

Who would of thought of using Kitchen Roll to Tie-Dye and use as a background??!  There are some other used there for bottled inks too.

Here we have some great ideas for using your free stamps to create Home Decor items, I love the Plant Lady notebook, it would be perfect for a gardener, I also love the plant pot!

Sarah Gray encourages you to dig into your Stencil stash to create some Retro Backgrounds to use with the free stamps.

A little feature showing you some fun ideas for the Lightbulb stamps that come in the free stamp set. Some of these would make great man cards.

Finally this designer has created some simple cards using the free stamps, some are just inked and spritzed with water, no line colouring is another technique, the last one explains how to use masking to create a different look.

I hope that you find some inspiration in this review.  Happy Crafting.

My Craft Shopping 

I bought these things from Amazon after watching a Tim Holtz tutorial, I was using a straw to blow my alcohol inks around my paper but Tim explained that they contain Cellulose so you don't want to be inhaling that, so I bought his Ink Blower, I also bought the little lift off ink refill for some different techniques and the tiny needle top bottles were super cheap, I got 10 in a pack , they will be good for adding drops of Blending solution or Rubbing Alcohol, so watch this space, I hope to play this weekend.

These items I bought in Hazel Eaton's shop sale, apart from the Lisa Horton embossing folder, which I have wanted for a while.  The Julie Hickey 'Thinking of you' die was £3 and it's a great size, that Woodware stamp will be good for Art journaling as will those Sizzix sentiments, they were both less than half price.  The Alloy Alcohol inks were not in the sale but after seeing them demonstrated I couldn't wait to play with them.  I also feel really good about supporting a little craft shop.

Now these aren't craft related but I think that they are a genius idea, the are little resealable pouches to put your herbs and spices in, I have loads of jars of herbs spices and spice blends in m pantry, I bought a Lazy Susan thing but there are too many and if you move it too quick they all fall over!! These will all fit in a little basket as they are quite flat even when filled. I have a few crates and boxes to start reorganising, I just need to summon the enthusiasm now!!! 

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend my lovely friends,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Our Next Challenge

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

It's Friday again, how can that be?!! You must all stay home safe today my lovely friends, it sounds like this Storm Eunice is going to be a rough one!  My immediate thought is you Janet, I hope that you don't suffer anymore damage to your roof, I don't think your builder could be coming on a worse day mind! I wonder if he will climb his ladder in the strong winds.  It must be forecast as bad around here as the Wildlife Park has only just reopened and they announced yesterday that they would be closed today due to the High Winds, the do have some huge trees in their vast grounds though.  Lets hope there isn't too much destruction anywhere.  We do seem to get a lot of these big storms these days.

A quiet weekend on the cards here, no long journeys, my knees couldn't cope with sitting in the car for long journey again this weekend. Although I would obviously go if Paul wanted to.  So I am hoping to do some crafting, I got some of the new Alloy Alcohol Inks in Gold & Silver and I loved the effect that Tim Holtz got when he was playing with them so I am hoping to have a play with those. 

Our Next Challenge

I thought that we would have a Colour themed Challenge this week, I went through ones that we had done before and decided to suggest a new one.  So I thought we would go for 'Complimentary Colours'  So Black and White or any monochrome, Grey/Yellow, Yellow/Green, Brown/Craft/ Cream, Purple/Pink etc.  I'm sure that you will all have your favourite combinations, like Peacock Feathers/ Wilted Violet for instance.  I think this will be a fun challenge, especially as you can all use your favourite colours and we have the option of doing Monochrome too.  There is also Gold & Silver to add to your combinations in case you want to make Christmas cards.

I hope you enjoy the challenge, I am always open to suggestions for challenges my lovelies.

I hope that you all stay safe today Ladies,

Sending love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

A Monochrome Vintage Card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope you are all safe and have suffered no damage in these awful storms, blimey it didn't let up here all day yesterday,  heavy rain accompanied the very strong winds.   

I was struggling for inspiration yesterday after a rough night (my fault for overdoing the reorganising on Tuesday,  Paul did day he would help after he finished work but I wanted to get it done)! I know patience is a virtue!!      

Anyway to cut a long story short I had the Very Versaille stamp set on my desk from the day before so that is what I decided to use, I looked for inspiration online and a card very similar to this was on the 4 page of searching,  I loved the style of it so I set out to make it using Very Vanilla and Black card. The border die is from 'Lacy Borders' die set. I finished with a Butterfly and a lace trim bow.  I will add the original designer literally cannot get off the sofa to check my laptop ( as I need Paul's help to get up). 

Please stay safe ny lovely friends, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                                xxxxxx 

A Vintage Journal Page

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope today finds you all well, or as well as can be expected 😊  Sending gentle hugs to those of you not feeling on top form 😘

I spent yesterday moving all of my StampinUp! Stamps to a bigger bookcase, in an ongoing effort to make more room in my craft room, I wanted them in alphabetical order too to make them easier to find, we have spilled out into the hall now though, I was suffering though after perming Lucy’s hair on Monday evening,  standing putting the rollers in absolutely killed my knees, (not that I would let on though)! She was happy with the results thats all that matters,  we will have to find a different arrangement for putting them in.  My craft room looked a little less cluttered which was a bonus,  the progress was slow, a did a couple of letters at a time, organising them on the shelf, Paul is working from home so we had plenty of 'Tea Breaks' ! 

Today's Journal page was started a couple of weeks ago when I added the Texture Paste to the journal pagel, I picked it up again yesterday when I added the script stamping and the Vintage Photo Distress Oxide all over the page, I wanted the bricks lighter so I sanded them back a bit, I needed to ink over them to get the areas between the bricks, they just looked wrong being white.  I added the Vine leaf stamp from Very Vintage stamp set, to give more interest to the background, I decided to use my Tom Holtz Wildflower dies for the main feature of the card, I inked them with DO's, I finished the page with a Seam Binding bow and a tag featuring the word 'Bloom'.  I think it's finished, thats the fun ofca journal page, you can keep playing 😜

I hope you all have a good day 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra                                                                              xxxxxx 

My Vintage Style Valentine Card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

Thank you Ladies for all of your kind supporting words yesterday,  I feel so truly blessed to have such lovely friends, well to be honest you are more like family 😍

Do any of you over think your craft projects?  I go into my craft room with an idea in mind,  I then decide to spend 5 minutes on Pinterest just to have a look at some inspiration,  2 hours later I am more uncertain than I was when I started!! Or I see a project that I love but I need to but £50 worth of products to make it!! So I must try to go with what  I'm thinking and not look on Pinterest!! (She says) 🙄!!

I will then get a couple of things out that I need for my 'idea' then totally change my mind, get a few more things to try, before you know it I have a mountain of craft stash and only a 6 inch square left on my A3 glass mat, I then decide to use the first thing I got out, which is at the bottom of the pile, you guessed it a ''Craftalanche" takes place and I spend 20 minutes picking it all up trying to put the right lid back on the right Distress Oxide inks!!   Please tell me it's not just me !!

Todays card is the card I made for Paul for Valentines Day, I went for a 'Vintage' look.  I used a combination of my Sam Poole stamp (for the script and postage mark) and SU Gorgeous Grunge stamp for background.  I added some Bakers Twine, for a fun touch I used my Dymo Omega to make a personalised label tape,( it's a cheap tool that I decided to buy after working out the cost of using Tim Holtz Tape) I can also use it to label everything!! 

It was around £11 and a 5 pack of tape was £8.99, so it worked out way cheaper in the long run with the added bonus of being able to personalise. It's totally manual so not as 'whizzy' as the electronic ones but it has that unique embossed look that I Love. 

I finished the card with some little hearts, to echo the tiny ones stamped in the background and I addeda bow topped with a tiny heart.   I inked the inside too and added some similar stamping and another Dymo Label. 

He loved his card thankfully x

I hope that you have a lovely day, 

Lilian I hope you have a wonderful few days with your family, enjoy every moment xxx

Sending my love and hugs to all,

Sandra

xxxxxx